Lotus Evora Long Term Test – Supercharger

Having taken delivery of the Evora S it was only a few short days until the first few thousand miles were racked up with a couple of decent trips undertaken, one to Frankfurt and another to Devon. Unfortunately on the 3rd trip in the car, ironically heading to it’s home in Hethel we came a cropper as we explained in the last update!

Now we’re in another Evora S which is a slightly different spec to the Burnt Orange Evora S.

Configuration

Evora S 2+2

£60,300

Wheels

Diamond Cut Design

£2,300

Exterior Equipment

Bi-Xenon Headlights

£620

Power fold mirrors

£340

Body coloured door handles

£340

Entertainment

Alpine Sat Nav

£520

Packs

Tech Pack

£2,700

Premium Pack

£1,800

Paint

Metallic Paint

£570

This totals out at £69,490 so pretty much fully loaded with all options, there is no ‘Sport Pack’ or Close Ratio gearbox for the S as both of these items are included as standard. What it means is that the car is a very well specced GT cruiser as well as sports car, the premium and tech packs making it a comfortable place although I must admit even the non-premium pack of the first ‘S’ was nice, the half leather was a welcome look and appealing to me. This update Alpine is a decent unit too, I’m using it as a sat nav on a regular basis and my phone hooks up to the Bluetooth very quickly and conversations can be easily had at all speeds, result!

Since picking up the blue car it’s again become my daily drive with no particularly long journeys to date but mainly around town, usual trips to the shops and to see friends and so on, normal everyday driving. It’s here I’ve found out that the S isn’t the best in the world for fuel consumption. On a journey the MPG figure (especially in Sport mode most of the time) will be in the low 20’s but around town we’re getting used to seeing 13-14 MPG on the display, but this is I suppose to be expected with short journeys, cold starts and heated seats being employed full time! Also, this car seems to have a more significant desire to be warm, it’s not particularly happy on a very partial throttle when cold and can be hesitant but this happens perhaps in the first 30 seconds of a journey, it doesn’t last for long and is easily countered by using the throttle pedal a little more deliberately early in the journey.

Now I’ve been driving the supercharged car for a few months and many thousand miles it’s clear that it’s different to the naturally aspirated Evora. Yes, they are both very fast cars with considerable pace but the S offers a significant increase in torque and BHP which can be used and felt more once pressing on, or more accurately using the performance of the car at less than optimum parts of the rev range. Towards the top of the rev range and at the end of a gear they’ll feel the same but it’s the getting there that feels different and mid range torque seems massively more available in the blown car and rather than feeling you need to take another gear to accelerate at full power there’s a more urgent and quicker pickup from lower RPM’s. Does this make for a lazier drive? Perhaps, but when really driving for real pleasure you use the gear which gives you what you want from it and drive the car as you desire. At times this may mean screaming through the gears extracting all the performance and in these circumstances, everything happens so quickly it’s hard to tell the supercharger is making much of a difference but back off then re-apply full throttle and you know it’s there and working 100%, this is the kind of driving I enjoy on A & B roads, in fact where the car excels and the supercharger only adds to this. In my opinion. Bearing in mind that once you’d added a Sport Pack and CR gearbox to an NA car the Supercharged one isn’t that much (relatively) more and those items are included on the S, it’s something that you need to explore yourself if you’re buying an Evora.

We’re coming up to Christmas now and the weather is turning cold so those heated seats will be getting more use. Talking of seats, this is a 16,000 mile car and the seats still look pretty new in fact, other cars have suffered from wear on the bolster so perhaps the leather has been changed or treated to add longevity. The gear change in this car is superb too, the best yet. This may be a result of the continuous upgrades Lotus are carrying out on the car or a result of a well worn in gearbox. Either way, it’s a pleasure and almost clacks between the gears it’s so mechanical and precise.

One last thing about the blue car, and that’s the blue! It’s Laser Blue to be exact, a premium metallic paint and it’s really, really well suited to the Evora. The Canyon Red was classy, exquisite as a colour and understated, the Burnt Orange was bright, in your face and what a sports car can get away with especially with the darker lacquer showing off the curves very well and the Laser Blue is just lovely, it’s a really good colour on the car and suits the shape down to the ground. My favourite colour by far, very nice and when matched with the black leather interior is a really, really nice combination. The Evora is quiet sensitive to colour choice and this one really is on the money, a very good looking car.

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